Coastal Carolina University's quiz bowl team placed third in the sixth annual Big South Athletic Conference College Quiz Bowl Championship held recently in the E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration.

Team members competing for CCU were team captain Seth Morgan, a senior pre-med student from Myrtle Beach; Amber Eckersley, a junior history and English major from Conway; Sarah C. Sexton, a math and marine science major from Murrells Inlet; Jordan R. Rutherford, a sophomore biology student from Spartanburg; Robert Cafaro, a junior in computer science from Georgetown; and Brandon A. Peluso of DeMossville, Ky., a junior in math and marine science.
Morgan earned third place overall for the highest individual points for correct answers.

David Duncan, department of math and statistics, served as CCU's team coach, and Charmaine Tomczyk, director of undergraduate research, was this year's tournament director.

Liberty University won first place for the fifth out of six tournaments since the Big South Quiz Bowl's inception in 2006. UNC-Asheville placed second. The bowl features 20-minute matches from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and questions on a variety of subjects – from pop culture to history to sports – created exclusively for this tournament by the National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC.

The idea for the tournament came from the Big South League's Academic Consortium, whose mission is to develop institutional relationships outside of athletics and to explore ways to share programs and resources to benefit students and member institutions. In addition to developing the quiz bowl, the consortium has supported an annual Undergraduate Research Symposium among Big South member institutions. CCU hosted the first symposium in 2007.

For additional information about the tournament or CCU's quiz bowl team, call Tomczyk at 843-349-2403 or e-mail charmain@coastal.edu.